Stardust
by sa-mu-uu
Summary: Usopp has a fateful encounter with one of Professor Flam's oldest projects, and finds the stars nearly within his reach for the first time in his life. [UsoNa Futuristic AU]


This was written for the One Piece Sci-Fi and Fantasy event. Hope you enjoy!

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Usopp bolted down the deserted hallway, passing walls of lockers at light speed as he scrambled to keep the loose papers from falling out of his notebook. He knew from experience that Professor Flam never appreciated tardiness, but he had a list of excuses to use this time around. His day—at least, so far—had been a seamless stream of back-to-back troubles with no end in sight.

A faulty alarm had given his morning a late start, only exacerbated by the fact that he spilled hot coffee on himself and had no time to run home for a new shirt before class. And on the road just outside of campus, the scent of his spilled drink had attracted a pack of stray cats; none of which had attacked him or anything, but they had managed to swindle him out of his lunch with their pitifully hungry meowing and incessant rubbing on his legs as he tried to walk. To make matters worse, he'd brought the wrong books with him, and had no material to study before his exam in fluid dynamics. It'd be some sort of miracle if had managed to pass that monstrous test, but he'd be lying if he said that he had expected to pass in the first place.

Turning the corner so sharply he almost missed the entrance to the lab, Usopp swung the door open and practically threw himself inside, dodging the rat's nest of cables and discarded metal scraps that he knew from experience littered the floor. Heaving to catch his breath he looked to the clock on the far wall, dreading what it would read.

 _6:04PM._

"You're late, li'l bro," a low, gruff voice came from the back of the room. "You know what that means."

"Yeah, I know," Usopp groaned, dropping his books onto one of the workshop desks as he crossed the room toward Franky's station. Cleaning duty. As if he wasn't delegated to that chore at least twice a week anyway.

"What kept you?" the professor asked, though it sounded more like he was expecting a tall tale than a genuine answer. Usopp was more than ready to oblige.

"I got into a fight with a giant sloth bear on the way here," he started matter-of-factly, stopping at the older man's side. "I had to wrestle it to the ground to keep it from attacking this blind old lady and her grandson. I would have been here on time if I hadn't had to wait so long for animal control to arrive and take over... They wanted me to come with them to their headquarters to thank me for my efforts, but I told them I already had plans."

"Wow. Sounds awesome," Franky said, shoulders shaking from trying to hold back a laugh as he continued tinkering with the chunk of disassembled robot arm in front of him. "So I take it class was a bust today too?"

That was the understatement of the century. "Same as always," Usopp muttered half under his breath, and he could hear Professor Flam let out a sigh through his steel-plated nose.

"What's it gonna take for you to switch o'er from Astrophysics to Engineering, already?" he asked, setting his wrench down and spinning in his chair to face Usopp. "You'd be my top student fer sure, if you actually took any of my classes."

"Maybe I'm a masochist and just get off on failing all of my classes." He cracked a bright smile to show he was joking, despite the way the suggestion made his stomach twist. But he left it at that, knowing Franky would accept it; they'd had that conversation a million times before, and Usopp's answer was never going to change. "So, what's the plan today?"

"Ohhh, y'know," Franky started, in that lackadaisical tone he used whenever he was about to prattle off a list of excruciatingly uninteresting busywork. "Inventory check, finishing yesterday's blueprinting, reorganizing the resistor drawers... calibrating a returned military android..."

"Did you just say 'military'?" Usopp raised an eyebrow, turning to face the older man with narrowed eyes. "When the hell did you do commission work for the _military_?" Although he'd only been the man's assistant for about a year, he'd never heard anything about any sort of government project; that seemed like the sort of thing that would come up in conversation at some point. Then again, he and Franky did have a weird sort of interpretation of what constituted proper communication.

"She was done an' shipped out not too long before you started here... Got shipped back by the state this past week, after her operators were killed during an interstellar expedition. They said they were dissolving that unit, and would need their money back more than they'd need a droid with her skill set. She's been dormant ever since."

Usopp's eyes nearly fell out of his head at the words "interstellar expedition", and the image of his father's face flashed in the back of his mind for a brief moment. "Killed? How?"

"Raided by pirates, from what I heard. Guess the lot of them were slaughtered before backup could arrive."

"Pirates, huh...?" Usopp frowned, leaning back against the wall again with a quiet thump.

"Don't worry, it wasn't your old man's group. The guys who did it were caught and locked up already."

"Oh, no, that's not it," he responded quickly. Actually, the thought had crossed his mind for a split second, but he knew better than anyone that his father's crew would never resort to raids. The insinuation that they would even have to do so in the first place was laughable, considering how successful they were in practically every way.

"I was... just wondering why the droid was spared, that's all," Usopp continued, picking up a pen from Franky's desk to cross off the few days on the man's wall calendar that he'd neglected to cross off on his own. After writing the date on the top of exam papers all day long, Usopp was pretty damn sure it was July 3rd, not June 28th. "I mean, your workmanship is so realistic that I doubt some run-of-the-mill pirate would be able to tell the difference between one and a normal person."

The man paused his fiddling just long enough to glance at the calendar, and let out a surprised huff that was probably due to the weird temporal disorientation that seemed to plague the man's life whenever he get too invested in his work. "Who knows, why not ask her yourself?"

"...You'll let me see her?" That was surprising, to say the least. It wasn't that Franky didn't trust him around the droids; he was close friends with quite a few of them, in fact. But working with them in a lab setting was a right he hadn't earned yet, according to the professor.

"Well, I don't see why not," he shrugged, shifting to stand from his desk. "Was gonna wake 'er up today anyway, might as well get acquainted. Come on, she's in the design lab."

Usopp was practically bouncing on his toes with excitement as they made their way to the next room over. A low hum echoed off the walls when Franky flipped on the room's light switch and they stepped inside. Usopp's senses were overpowered by bright white and the familiar smell of paint fumes and freshly cut metal as they made their way past half-finished cart robots and disassembled appliances to the work station in the back.

Just as Franky had said, she was still dormant. Her eyes were shut and her head was dipped down, leaning against the side of the steel crate she stood upright in. She could have passed as simply sleeping, were it not for the fact that she didn't breathe or move at all. The only motion within the shipment box was the gentle ruffling of her synthetic tangerine curls by the ceiling fan above them.

He swallowed thickly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he absorbed her image; he would probably never get over how humanlike Franky's androids were. The man was a true artist, that was for damn sure. Usopp could have easily believed that the dusting of freckles across the bridge of the droid's nose were conceived from the sun itself, had he not been so familiar with what silicon decals were supposed to look like. Her shoulder was marred by ripped tissue from what looked like a knife cut, revealing a trace of silver underneath her skin that was utterly undetectable anywhere else. Even her slightly parted lips glistened under the light, convincingly boasting a life force that she technically didn't have. She was a vision of scientific perfection, but he knew a child of Franky's lab when he saw one. Despite not being there for her creation, he could easily imagine Professor Flam slaving over every individual hair on her head, same as he had with all the others (except for—perhaps—his overly rambunctious prototype, but that was a whole different bag of cats.)

One particular detail that caught his eye; an identification qr code printed onto her arm, with long swirls darting out from the top and bottom to decorate it with an "S"-like shape. Usually they wouldn't bother with the extra design, but it did look nice. Curiosity took over, and Usopp dug his phone out of his pocket to scan the code while he waited for Franky to finish rummaging around in one of the cabinets beside him.

The profile page that loaded on his phone wasn't a very long one. Within a wall of technical information, it stated that her name was Nami, and she was commissioned for creation by the Cosmic Coalition [CC-YA4]. Her list of preset knowledge seemed to be geared toward navigation and geography, and she was equipped with the professor's high-end personality cores as well. That meant that she would be on par with the rest of the disowned droids in their group as far as temperament went; that was promising. According to the profile, it was requested by the buyers that her personality be strong-willed and resourceful; not exactly the kind of thing buyers would often go out of their way to order, but was usually on the Franky's to-do list anyway. Other than that, there was a surprising lack of information.

"If you're looking for test records, you're not gonna find them," Franky said, coming back over to his side and tugging up Nami's shirt a bit to get to the tiny hatch where her rib cage would meet if she had one. For some reason, the man was insistent on putting the power buttons and whatnot for his creations there. Something to do with natural chakra—Usopp never quite understood the concept.

"Why's that?" he asked, stumbling out of Franky's way as he turned her on and tugged the fabric back down to where it was.

"That'd be because're aren't any," he shrugged. "They wanted her ahead of schedule, never got the chance to run anything. But since they never called to complain about anything bein' broken, I guess it turned out alright."

Usopp didn't have time to comment on how super unprofessional that was before he caught sight of the droid's fingers twitch, and saw the rest of her frame quickly flutter to life as well. His breath caught in his throat as she straightened up and opened her eyes, coming to life in an instant.

"Professor-... Cutty Flam?" She asked, looking over at Franky with a perplexed expression and blinking a couple times, her pupils visibly fluctuating until her system adjusted to the room's bright lighting.

"Just Franky'll do." He gestured to the chair pulled out away from one of the lab desks for her to take a seat. "It's nice to finally meetcha, girlie."

"Likewise. I never thought I'd actually get to speak with you." She smiled cordially and stepped from the crate, taking a moment to study the messy lab around them in a slight daze until her eyes fell on Usopp. "...Who's this?"

Usopp could feel a tiny burst of adrenaline in his heart from the unexpected question directed at him; right, they were strangers. Although he'd skimmed through her info just moments before, she didn't know anything about him at all. "Uh... I'm Usopp, Franky's highly esteemed and equally genius colleague! We've been working together for decades; I'm surprised you've never heard of me."

A lengthy pause followed his declaration, and her eyes focused in on his with a deeply skeptical look, until she raised an amused eyebrow and turned back to the professor. "He's lying, right? Why?"

"He's my student assistant. He jus' kinda does that."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Usopp… if that is your real name." Flashing a toothy grin, she took the seat Franky offered and straightened out her skirt, crossing one leg over the other. To say she exuded confidence would be an understatement; the way she carried herself was just as self-assured as any other creation of his Usopp had ever encountered. Perhaps even more so.

"Y-yeah… it is," he admitted, leaning back against the desk to the right of hers in defeat. "I'm Usopp, astrophysics student extraordinaire." Still a bit of an exaggeration, but close enough that Franky didn't bother correcting him again.

"So, d'you know why you're here?" the professor asked, his voice switching gears to sound more serious.

"Well, I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that my operators were all... slaughtered," she muttered quietly, leaning against the table with her chin in one hand. "But I'm not sure why I was sent here instead of to another exploration unit."

"That'd be because they can't afford to keep ya. Dissolving the unit was pretty costly, apparently," The desk behind Franky creaked slightly as he took a seat on top of it and readjusted his glasses with a slight frown. "So they demanded a refund. We don't usually do that sorta thing, but it's not easy to reject a request from the military."

"So… I'm out of a job, then?" Her voice was tinged with sadness, but she mustered up a light-hearted smile regardless. Something in Usopp's chest swayed uncomfortably at the sight.

"That's right."

Nami nodded slowly, processing his response. There was a mixture of grief and acceptance in her eyes. She looked lost, but impressively unafraid. It must have been that "strong-willed" trait that her profile mentioned. "You're my creator, right? So… can you find me another purpose? What happens now?"

"...See, that's the thing," he grumbled, folding his hands in his lap. "The university can't afford a surprise refund like this; it ain't got the budget. The administrative board wants us to sell ya for parts."

"They want us to do _what_?" Usopp gaped, turning to the professor so fast his head could have rolled off his shoulders. "Now's not the time for jokes, Franky! This is serious!"

"I wouldn't joke 'bout this, you know that."

He was right, Usopp did know that. If there was anything he knew about the older man, it was that he was cold sober on the topic of roboethics. He wouldn't say something like that if it weren't seriously true.

Usopp turned back to Nami, who had surprisingly not made a single sound despite being told that her life was essentially about to be taken from her. Why hadn't she said anything? Surely she must have had some sort of objection to this. But their eyes only met for a brief moment before her chair screeched against the concrete floor and she was dashing to the door, disappearing into the main workshop in a blur of orange. Usopp's jaw hung slack as he stared at the empty doorway, trying to register what had just happened.

"Ah, damn it," Franky grumbled under his breath, running a hand frustratedly through his thoroughly styled hair. "Go catch her, would ya?"

Usopp broke into a sprint the moment the man stopped speaking, following the path she'd taken to the door at breakneck speed. Of course she would try to run, why the hell hadn't he seen that coming? Anyone would try that in such a situation, given the chance. But she wouldn't last a day on her own without supplies from the lab; allowing her to disappear would ultimately result in the same thing as she was running from. He couldn't allow that.

"Nami, stop!" he called after her, skidding around one of the workshop tables and jumping over a knot of thick wires on the floor. He caught up to her in no time at all, mostly due to the fact that she had no idea how the lab workshop was laid out, or even where the exit was. When she peered over her shoulder at him with wide eyes, seeing that he was only a few yards away on the opposite side of the desk cluster that separated them, she grit her teeth and shook her head violently.

"No! Just let me go!" she yelled back, cautiously leaning left, then right, as they stood in a stalemate awaiting the other's next move. He mirrored her movements without responding, giving her an apologetically stern look that said, no, he wasn't going to be able to do that. But when she tried to fake him out with a jerk to the right and made a break for it to the left, he simply vaulted over the table, closing the distance between them with ease that was more adrenaline-powered than the product of his own lackluster physical abilities.

His hand gripped her wrist just in time to keep her from tripping and falling, having caught her mid-step through the tangle of cords near the drill presses. She swayed dangerously but caught herself quickly, and spun on her heels to face him with a furious expression. "I just told you-"

"W-...Wait, hold on," he gasped, embarrassingly out of breath from the short bout of exertion. "Will you quit running and just hear us out for a minute? Please?"

"What could you possibly have to say that I would want to hear?!" she asked, still audibly horrified as she wrenched her wrist out of his grip. He let go right away—which seemed to surprise her—and she hesitantly stood still, waiting for a response instead of running like he sort of expected her to.

"I... I don't know! But there has to be more to it, right?" He looked over his shoulder to Franky, who stood with his massive shoulder leaning against the doorframe to the warehouse. There just _had_ to be something more to this. He'd never ever heard of them decommissioning a sentient android before; it agitated his gag reflex just thinking about it. The fact that the older man had even said such a thing led Usopp to believe wholeheartedly that there had to be more to it.

"Yup. There is," Franky nodded once. "Though I can't blame 'er for responding like that. It's tough news to get."

Usopp let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, shoulders slumping from the overwhelming sense of relief that his mentor was going completely out of his mind.

Nami stood quietly for a long moment, studying Franky with a conflicted but guarded glare. "...Why did you even bother telling me?" she finally asked, brow knitting as she visibly tensed and bit her lip. "You… you could have just done it, right? Why even bother waking me up if I'm just going to die?"

"Because it might not have t' come t' that," he replied simply, strolling from his spot in the doorway to the cluttered cluster of tables where she and Usopp had their face-off of sorts. The metal chair he pulled out slid against the cement floor with a high-pitched grind, and he promptly sat down and let out a hefty sigh. "I want to help you, but that means no runnin' away, alright?"

She looked from him, to Usopp, then back to him again. A look of hesitance flashed in her eyes, but she nodded, folding her arms across her chest. "...Alright."

"Super," Franky grinned, and even from behind the man's sunglasses, Usopp could tell he was relieved. "Like I said, the university is pretty hellbent on scrappin' ya. But it's not 'cause they want ya dead or anything. They just need to soften the blow of such a huge debt as much as they can."

"So a droid is only worth the sum of its parts," she mused bitterly, her eyes downcast to a small pile of scrap metal on the table.

"Some people might think so… But this kid here and I know better than that. If y'ask me, it'd be a lot more lucrative to put ya to work here at the university. But teaching positions are hard t' come by, so that might not be the easiest to arrange."

"Teaching?" she repeated, eyes drifting to Usopp's discarded stack of textbooks and papers aside the metal on the table with an unsure expression. "...I've never really considered that before."

"Uh, y-you probably shouldn't look at that," Usopp cut in, feeling a rush of heat to his face as she picked up one of the loose sheets that he recognized to be his unfinished fluid dynamics homework, and started to skim through it. He was so embarrassingly terrible in that subject, and judging by the info on her that he'd read, she would probably know it.

"Wow," she snickered, a slight smile overriding the scowl on her face. "I don't think this could possibly be any more incorrect. Did you do this?"

"No—I mean, yes. Sort of." He snatched the paper from her hand and stuffed it and all of the others inside his differential equations textbook and out of sight. He didn't need to be told how awful it was, he was well aware already. More salt in the wound wasn't really going to help much.

"Maybe you could tutor his sorry ass for a few million beli," Franky smirked, chuckling a bit at his expense. Usopp let it slide, if only because it was slight improvement over the somber atmosphere from earlier.

"Just how much money do you think I have?" As if he wasn't already up to his neck in debt from school enough as it was. But the older man knew that; Usopp only complained about once every couple of hours, after all.

"Why are you majoring in astrophysics, anyway?" Nami asked, still giggling a little at whatever it was she found amusing about his miserable excuses for equation applications. At least that was better than her running away, if nothing else. "Wouldn't it be easier to do something you're better at?"

That was… a touchy subject, to put it lightly; and was hardly something he was comfortable sharing with a stranger. He didn't expect anyone to understand why he needed so desperately to make it to space; and after being told so many times that his dream was pointless, he was tired of explaining it. So he kept his answer brief; he was so well-rehearsed in using the line on everyone else who had ever asked that it came out perfectly articulate. "I just need to get out there, no matter what."

Her expression melted into a soft, understanding smile. "Yeah... me too."

Usopp's eyes widened, taken aback by her response. He was far more used to people simply dismissing his answer as foolish but befitting of him; nobody ever expressed empathy quite like that before. But what she said made sense. Of course she would feel the same; she was born for the cosmos. And, in a way, he was too.

"D'you have anyone you can ask for help?" Franky spoke up again, startling Usopp out of his thoughts. "Anyone who can put you up while we figure somethin' out?"

She shook her head. "No. Every human I've developed a relationship with is already gone."

Franky hummed in thought for a moment, folding his arms behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Havin' a foster operator for a bit would definitely buy us some time to getcha a job, but if ya don't know of anyone, I guess that's off the table." Without skipping a beat, his neck craned to face Usopp's direction. "Unless…" he trailed off, but his insinuation was loud and clear.

Oh god, Franky wanted him to take her.

Even the idea of having someone else so much as see the inside of his shitty apartment was horrifying, never mind the prospect of someone actually _living_ there, human or not. Then again, he couldn't think of a better option. Franky had his hands full with his prototype, Luffy, and his unfinished hybrid model, Chopper, enough as it was. Brook had already been kind enough to volunteer to take their first return, Sanji, after the droid had gotten himself fired from his commissioner's host club for breaking six tables and as many male clients in his first two weeks of employment. And Robin, despite Franky's insistence that their house was full enough, had been rather adamant that they couldn't allow their second returned droid, Zoro, to fend for himself on the streets. But at least the guy was useful to have around; having been designed for work as a prison guard before causing a few too many inmate casualties, he made an excellent sentinel for the group. That said, Usopp was positive they couldn't possibly have space for another.

He was the only one left that hadn't stepped up to take in a disowned droid yet. And even though they would clearly have to find another solution if this kept happening, he had to admit that the prospect was tempting. He was positive that having her around would be beneficial to achieving his dream, and it wouldn't be all that far-fetched to consider that he might be able support her as well. At the very least, he couldn't be worse for her than death, right?

He reluctantly glanced over at her, and something tightened in his chest as they made eye contact again. A look resembling hope flickered across her face, and something passed between them in that moment; a connection that he couldn't quite place, but knew without a doubt would be impossible to disregard. He wanted to help her, that was the bottom line. With a deep breath, the words erupted from his mouth before he had the chance to catch them. "Come live with me."

As if she'd already known he was going to say that, she launched at him with a tight hug the moment he stopped talking. He nearly toppled over but managed to stay upright, reflexively wrapping his arms around her shoulders as he tried to process what the hell he'd just offered to do. "Really?! Thank you so much, Usopp! You're the best!"

"But you're going to have to help me out a bit sometimes, a-alright? I won't tolerate freeloading!" he said, trying desperately to ignore the older man laughing loudly behind them. But realistically speaking, he wasn't entirely sure he would be able to make good on that bluff, if the strength behind her embrace were any indication.

"Of course! You'll never fail another test again if I have anything to say about it," she said sweetly, though he couldn't help but feel like it sounded more like a warning than an assurance. "Let's make it to space together, okay?"

"Y-yeah," he said on an exhale, momentarily blown away by her offer. He had to admit, it sounded like a pretty damn good idea.

"I'll see if I can dig up any potential employment," Franky chimed in, still sporting that same shit-eating smirk. "In the meantime, try to find some pocket change to keep the board content with, alright?"

"Thank you, Franky." Nami peered around Usopp's shoulder to smile at the professor, and finally released his midsection from her vice grip. "I have a few methods for making some quick cash. You can leave that part to me."

Usopp wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what she meant by that, but he would probably find out soon enough anyway. Franky's creations were impressively unique, but they all shared a common trait; every single one of them was like a magnet for ridiculous predicaments. What hope did he have that she would be any different?

"Alright then," Franky started, cracking his knuckles as he stood and headed for the door they'd come from. "Let's give you a quick scan an' hook you two up with some mobile equipment. Sound good?"

"What did I just get myself into?" Usopp groaned as Nami dragged him along after Franky back toward the design lab.

"Something pretty great, I bet," she replied, giving him a glance over her shoulder as they walked.

Usopp's day—at least, so far—had been a seamless stream of back-to-back troubles with no end in sight. And as he smiled back at the girl who held his hand with a grin as bright as the stars, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that those troubles were only just beginning. But he had a hunch that it would be worth it.

* * *

This was written as a one shot, but if there's any interest, I would love to continue with more installments. Thanks for reading!


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